


It's All Happening

by sweet_ladyy



Category: Almost Famous (2000), Queen (Band)
Genre: Almost Famous/Queen crossover, Brian being very sexy and alluring, Crossover, Drunkenness, Eventual fighting, F/M, First Meetings, Hookups, Hotels, Jealousy, Love Triangles, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Unrequited Love, but i may change it up some, could be read as an Original Female Character, meeting at a bar, so you can follow along with the real life dates, trying to adhere to Queen's actual 1975 US tour
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-23 05:49:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17074544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweet_ladyy/pseuds/sweet_ladyy
Summary: February 1975. Lady Goodman (or, as the world of Rock and Roll knows her, “Penny Lane”) just returned home from a self-discovery trip to Morocco. A happenstance, erm…meeting with the handsome and charming guitarist of the rock band Queen, and Penny finds herself whisked away to join the band on their Sheer Heart Attack tour in America.Will Penny choose to revert to her old lifestyle of touring with rock bands and “inspiring the music” – the one she’d just promised herself she would forsake forever? And what would happen if she catches the eye of not one but TWO Queen members?





	1. What will our names be?

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction written for entertainment purposes and is not intended to be taken as truth or fact. I do not claim to own Brian May, Queen, Almost Famous, or any other affiliated names or fictional events.
> 
> ✵Note✵: You will not need to have seen the movie Almost Famous to enjoy this work! There will be very few references to the movie; mostly just original content featuring Penny’s character a few years after the events of the movie. Any references are thoroughly explained. Penny will develop her new story from scratch and you’ll find her personality quirky and easy to like.

  


 

♛♛♛♛♛♛♛♛

_Tuesday, Feb. 4, 1975_

_Columbus, Ohio_

Hotel bars are excellent places to people-watch.

She twirls the straw of her drink. She wears a winter coat with a modest blouse and a business skirt — a style far from her own. Beside her is her single suitcase, packed and ready to go home.

The lighting here at the far end of the counter is dim enough that passersby don’t catch her looking. It’s mostly businessmen, wearing tweed jackets and puffing cigarettes and ordering Old-Fashioneds. They are all dull charactitures to match a dull town.

And that’s why the next man to walk in catches her eye.

He’s tall and young, probably in his twenties. He’s dressed in a lovely way that marks him as outstandingly European. As he sits and leans forward in his barstool to order something, wild ringlets of black hair fall into his face.

And unlike any of the other bar patrons, she catches his eye, too.

She holds his gaze, her lips remaining placid but a knowing smile flitting across her eyes. He, however, can’t contain the blush that blooms across his cheeks and down his neck. But he does not break her gaze.

“Would you like to close out, Miss?” The bartender diverts her attention, if briefly. She glances at him before looking back to the curly-haired man across the bar. He still looks right at her as he stands.

“No,” she replies. “In fact, I think I’ll take another Tequila Sunrise.”

Ordering drinks is a newfound ability, and one that she revels in now. Back at home in California, the drinking age is still 21; here in Ohio, it’s 18. Her 18th birthday was last month. That said, these are hardly her first drinks. The last time she’d been to a bar, though — nearly a year and a half ago — someone still had to order for her. Not anymore.

The man with the curly hair draws nearer. A question crosses his face, but before he can speak she gestures to the empty seat beside her. Slowly, hesitantly, he sits.

She takes note of him. The warmth in his dark eyes. The way he wrings his hands in his lap. The smile lines playing at the corners of his mouth as he takes note of her in a similar fashion. There’s an odd sort of pendant hanging around his neck and resting on his smooth chest. She doesn’t miss a thing, and judging by the way he looks at her, neither does he.

“We have the same hair,” she remarks first. Her tone of voice — airy, light, yet full of seriousness — surprises her. _Old habits die hard._

He brings a hand up to brush a ringlet out of his face. “We do.”

“Perhaps we were meant to find each other.”

He’s unfazed by the gutsy presumption. “Perhaps.”

“You’re not from here,” she states.

“Neither are you.” The accented drawl to his baritone tells her she was right.

“Sure, I am,” she challenges. “I go to the local college just up the road.”

“If you were from here, you wouldn’t be patronizing the local hotel bar.”

“Maybe it’s just the best bar in Columbus.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

She laughs, throwing her hands up in surrender. “Alright, you caught me. Neither of us are from here, then.”

“And what about me gave it away?” he asks. His eyes never once leave hers, and she likes it.

“Well, those clogs, for starters.”

He frowns in mock-offense. “These are all the rage in London.”

“I’m sure they are.”

“What else?”

She considers describing him in more detail when she realizes that’s exactly what he expects her to do. What he wants her to do. Instead, she gives him a subtle down-up motion with her eyes. “You hold yourself like an Englishman.” She is all-too-familiar with the way Englishmen hold themselves.

“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” he asks, his voice heavy with curiosity now.

But she holds her tongue, smirking her famous smirk instead. It’s been a while since she last smirked like this to a man.

When he sees she won’t elaborate, he says, “Alright, so we’ve established that I’m English. You’re obviously American. But you’re not from here. So where _are_ you from?”

“You think I’d tell you so easily, strange man in a strange bar?” she quips.

“Then, let me introduce myself, and I won’t be so strange anymore.” He outstretches his hand. “I’m Brian May.”

Her breath catches in her throat.

Brian May? As in, _the_ Brian May, rock guitarist for Queen? She internally groans. How did she not recognize him?

 _Because you’ve spent the past year and a half trying to purge all forms of rock and roll from your life,_ she reminds herself. All that time she purposely kept the radio off, her records under her bed, the music pop tabloids at bay. She no longer went to rock concerts, or studied lyrics, or smiled at the musicians’ stoic portraits on the album covers.

She vowed rock and roll out of her life. No more concerts, no more lyrics, no more rock stars, no more guitarists, _no more damn guitarists._

And here is one, sitting right beside her at a hotel bar in Columbus.

_Just my luck. Just my damn luck._

But instead of showing all of this, instead of getting up and leaving him like she should, she gives him a knowing smile and lies to his face. “I know.” She brings her hand to his in greeting. Not a beat missed. “It’s a pleasure.”

He holds her hand a little too long in his own calloused one. “You knew?” He frowns.

“Don’t look so surprised,” she purrs. “Besides, what does a name really matter?”

“A name can matter a lot.”

The bartender pushes two drinks in front of the couple; one (more) Tequila Sunrise for her, one Guinness for him. Relishing the frosty glass on her hands, she sips and peeks at Brian as he tastes his beer.

He’s a looker, that’s for sure. A handsome angular face with a strong jaw and a confident air. His body emulates a masculine sort of grace. She likes men like him.

_Stop it._

“You never gave me yours,” he says.

“My what?”

“Your name.”

The second cocktail begins to spur her mind into a familiar, dizzying spiral. “You think I’d give you my name, now?”

He looks baffled. “Well why not?” he presses. “I gave you mine.”

“And that inherently obligates me to give you _mine_?”

“It’s a common courtesy. I only assumed the same geniality.”

 _Damn, he’s quick._ She’s trying to throw him for a loop, but he won’t falter. He’s educated, that’s clear. Most boys get all tied up in her words, especially when she uses the big ones. But he hasn’t missed a beat yet, either. 

A jolt of excitement resonates in her stomach.

“I’m nice enough without a name, aren’t I?”

“Don’t get me wrong, love, you’re perfectly nice,” he says, and at his choice of words the jolt of excitement she felt before inches its way down south. “But come on. Your name can’t be _that_ bad.”

It really _is_ that bad — she laughs to herself, thinking _if only you knew_ — but that isn’t why she won’t tell him.

The truth is, she can’t decide which name to give.

“I’ll lose my air of mystery if I tell you my name.”

“Poor excuse. Besides, that’s highly unlikely.” He bites the inside of his cheek as he studies her. As if she were a crossword puzzle, or an obscure line of poetry. A thought surfaces; she forgot how much she enjoyed it when people looked at her the way Brian is right now.

_Don’t do this to yourself._

“I’m all out of smart quips for you,” she admits.

“Then tell me your name.”

“No.” She bit back a grin. _He’s fun._

With a sharp huff of a laugh, he shakes his head. “You’re killing me. I dare you to tell me your name.”

“You’re relentless.”

“What are the odds that you’ll tell me your name?”

“You’ve really got a thing for names, don’t you?”

They’ve gravitated closer to each other somehow, inexplicably. Her knee is just barely brushing his. And still, he leans in closer to repeat himself, his voice a soft murmur: “What are the odds that you’ll tell me your name?”

“One in a hundred.”

“Choose a number between one and one-hundred, then.” When her eyebrow shoots up, he adds, “I’ll count down from three, and if we both say the same number at the same time, you have to tell me your name.”

She giggles. “You’re going to lose.”

“Do you have your number in mind?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Three, two, one…”

“Fifty-seven,” she says.

“Thirty-nine,” he says at the same time. “Dammit!”

She laughs then, a full-bellied laugh that makes her stomach feel like she’s on a roller coaster and her head feel like she’s high. And he watches her like she’s the best thing he’s ever seen. When her laughter slows to chuckles and she finds that she’d placed her hand on his bicep, and his deep eyes bear into her with a soul-piercing intensity, and his gaze travels down to her lips...she freezes.

_Don’t._

_Don’t do it._

_Ah, fuck it._

“You can call me Penny,” she breathes, watching his face light up. “Penny Lane.”

And as Penny allows Brian to lead her up to his hotel room on the twentieth floor, kissing her lips and her neck and her collarbones the whole way there, Penny allows herself to ignore the vow of abstinence against rock stars she’d taken nearly a year and a half ago.

Just for tonight.

 

♛♛♛♛♛♛♛♛


	2. "I have to go home."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brian carefully closes the distance between them, raising a tentative hand to tuck a lock of curls behind her ear. He looks at her, awestruck, as if she were a galaxy. “Penny,” he breathes. “Penny Lane. Like the song. Who are you?”
> 
> If she were being honest, Lady didn’t know who she was at this point. So she says simply: “I’m a lot of things.”
> 
> “Penny Lane,” he says again, as if he simply wants to hear the name roll off his tongue again. She knows Brian isn’t satisfied with the obviously-fake name she gave him. But she also knows he prefers a fake name to no name at all.
> 
> The way he called it out between moans last night speaks for itself.
> 
> OR:
> 
> Lady Goodman wakes up beside Brian May after a one-night-stand. There's chemistry, sure. But she's not sure she's quite ready to jump back into her old life. Will she accept his invitation backstage at the concert that evening?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the amazing feedback and support on this fanfic! I hope you guys fall in love with the characters as much as I am :) Additionally, I’m adhering to the actual historical timeline of events from Queen’s U.S. leg of the 1975 Sheer Heart Attack tour as closely as possible. Along with the dates and locations, this record also chronicles setlists, interviews, and other details from each show of the tour! Follow along here: http://www.queenlive.ca/queen/1975.htm

##  _Chapter 2 / ?: “I have to go home.”_

♛♛♛♛♛♛♛♛

 

> _from Cameron Crowe’s original unabridged script:_
> 
> _PENNY (baring her soul): When I was 14, my Mom and her boyfriend took me to a Rolling Stones concert - and I freaked out and I rushed up to the front of the stage and then a thousand people had the same idea at the same time and I was getting crushed. And I couldn’t breathe and that thought flashed through me - almost like a car accident - I thought I might die. And it was in the middle of “Midnight Rambler” and Keith Richards saw me. And he came over, and came to the front of the stage, and he pulled me out. And they took me backstage and they gave me coke with ice and a - and a lemon. And I never went home._
> 
> _WILLIAM: What about your Mom?_
> 
> _PENNY: She always said - “Marry Up.” Marry someone grand. That’s why she named me Lady._
> 
> _WILLIAM (horrified): She named you Lady?_
> 
> _PENNY: Lady Goodman._
> 
> _WILLIAM: No._
> 
> _PENNY: You never really get used to it, either._
> 
> _WILLIAM: Well – this – this just explains everything._

 

♛♛♛♛♛♛♛♛

 

_Wednesday, Feb. 5, 1975_

_Columbus, Ohio_

There are two things on her mind when she wakes next to Brian May:

First, an acute awareness that she’d missed her evening flight home.

Second, a fog of indecision over her own name.

Morning light filters through the blinds of the hotel room window. The only sound in the room is the gentle breathing of the man in bed beside her. His arm is draped across her torso. His hair looks like a halo sprawled out on the pillow around his head. She’s reminded of a renaissance painting.

Although the warmth of his skin beckons her to stay, she gently peels herself away from the man. Careful not to aggravate her headache, she pads her way to the small bathroom and rinses her face.

The mirror shows an exhausted yet radiant reflection of a girl with a rogue look in her eyes. The sight is so familiar, yet so nostalgically distant, that her heart rate spikes. She hasn’t looked like this in a long time.

Lady Goodman hasn’t been herself in a long time.

Lady Goodman, eighteen years old, lives in San Diego, recent high school graduate. Lady Goodman is who everyone wants Lady Goodman to be. A good daughter, straight-A student, a classical musician, a future wife. Lady Goodman is poised, graceful, and well-mannered. Lady Goodman is a cornucopia of grandiose obligations. Lady Goodman was supposed to have come home the night of the Rolling Stones concert when she was fourteen.

Penny Lane, however… Penny Lane is everything Lady Goodman is not. And it was so easy, scarily easy, to slip back into her alter ego when the opportunity presented itself in the form of Brian Harold May.

She sighs at herself in the mirror, absentmindedly running her fingertips along the lovely purplish bruises that have blossomed on her collarbone from last night. She’s miles and miles from San Diego, yet she feels right at home. It’s a frightening feeling.

Speaking of San Diego, she’ll need to get another plane ticket since she missed her flight last night…

“BRIAN!!!!”

A succession of loud noises at the door nearly gives Lady a heart attack. Knocking? No…drumsticks against the doorframe in an insistent beat. Quickly, she closes the bathroom door, hoping to stay hidden. She presses her ear to the crack to listen.

“Wake up! We’re already late!” the raucous voice shouts from outside the room.

Brian groans, tossing in the sheets. “Bugger off,” he mutters to the other man.

“Brian, open the door! Norman’s going to kill us if he hears we miss this radio interview!”

Another muffled voice, this one more honeyed in texture. “Who gives a damn what Norman Sheffield wants from us? He can suck my—”

“Freddie!”

“Ouch!”

A few seconds later, and it sounds like Brian’s gotten up to open the door. There’s a disbelieving huff of laughter.

“Alright, mate, where’s the bird?” said the first voice.

“Roger, you —”

“There’s absolutely no way you didn’t have a girl in here last night. Look at the place!” The other man has a cheeky smile in his voice. There’s a thumping sound — the pat of a back? “Atta boy, Bri!”

“I swear to God…”

“Where is she? I want to meet the goddess who found a way to seduce the stone-walled legend of self-control himself,  _Brian Harold May!”_

“Bugger off!” A moment’s pause. “I think — I think she left.”

“So I was right! There  _was_  a girl!”

_“Roger!”_

“Okay, okay, fi — whoa, whoa! I’m just messing around! I’m sorry, alright? Let’s talk about it on the bus. Get dressed, you git. And  _hurry!_ We’re late!”

The door slams shut again. Brian huffs out a dejected breath. When she’s certain the other man is gone, Lady bites her lip and steps out of the bathroom.

Shock registers on Brian’s face as he looks up at her. “You’re still here?”

Lady smirks and musters up all the bravado she can. “You think you could get rid of me that easily, Brian Harold May?”

Relief floods his features. He looks absolutely delightful, standing there in his underwear looking at her in her underwear. His dark eyes tell the story of what they did last night. A ping of guilt — and something else — pricks her stomach.

Brian carefully closes the distance between them, raising a tentative hand to tuck a lock of curls behind her ear. He looks at her, awestruck, as if she were a galaxy. “Penny,” he breathes. “Penny Lane. Like the song. Who are you?”

If she were being honest, Lady didn’t know who she was at this point. So she says simply: “I’m a lot of things.”

“Penny Lane,” he says again, as if he simply wants to hear the name roll off his tongue again. She knows Brian isn’t satisfied with the obviously-fake name she gave him. But she also knows he prefers a fake name to no name at all.

The way he called it out between moans last night speaks for itself.

He looks for a moment as if he wants to kiss her, or embrace her. But some unspoken rift of awkwardness divides them. It’s the Morning-After Syndrome. Lady is all too familiar.

So Brian drops his hand and begins his trek around the hotel room, throwing clothes in his suitcase haphazardly. Lady locates her own suitcase, which had somehow made its way upstairs with her in the haste of the night before, and starts pulling fresh clothes.

“We’re supposed to be checked out of the hotel and at the radio station by noon,” Brian explains. “And then our first show of the U.S. leg is tonight.”

He glances up suddenly. “Do you want to come?”

“Come where?”

“To the concert. We can get you a backstage pass.”

Of course she wants to come. That innate part of her — the part of her very soul that yearns toward music in her every waking thought — wants nothing more than to come. If she had a choice, she wouldn’t hesitate to throw on her old green fur-lined coat and bell bottoms and heart-shaped sunglasses and sway to the beat of rock and roll from the side of the stage.

Did she have a choice?

She couldn’t. She  _wouldn’t._ Touring with rock bands was her old life. She wouldn’t subject herself to the temptation — or the inevitable pain — any longer.  

_You’re retired._

“I have to go home,” she says.

“Where’s home?”

“San Diego,” she answers honestly. “I was just in Columbus on vacation.”

“Who goes to Columbus for a vacation?” he asks with a quizzical raise of a brow.

“It was a college visit.”

“College visit…” His eyes widen. “You’re… You’re not still—”

“I’m eighteen, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she says, sneering. “Nice of you to check anyway.” Lady has lied about being eighteen for a multitude of years, although this time, she truly is eighteen.  _The truth just sounds different._

Brian looks visibly relieved. “I would have never guessed you were so…so…”

“Young?” she tries to answer for him.

He rubs the back of his neck. “Well, you certainly don’t look as young as eighteen. And given your experience level with—” He breaks off suddenly, flushing a violent red. “I didn’t mean—”

She laughs and laughs. Oh, how much she loves it when British rock stars got flustered. And Brian’s own unique brand of flustered is so incredibly addicting. Soon enough, her giggles are so contagious that Brian joins in.

Their laughter fades, leaving only a shared gaze and a mutual feeling of uncertainty.

“I have to go now,” she says quietly. “I missed my flight home last night.”

What she said must have struck a chord. Brian straightens. A furrowed brow and shifting eyes tell more than words.  _Does he not want me to leave?_

“Home,” he repeats, more to himself than to her.

“Yes, home. I live in San Diego.”

“I…” He pushes a nervous hand through his wild hair. “If I’m being honest, I’m not familiar with, erm…”

She raises an eyebrow. “With what?”

“Fuck. God, why is this so hard?” He takes a deep breath. “Okay. You have to understand… I’ve never done this. I rarely ever meet with girls on tour. Hell, I’ve never even been with a groupie, which makes Roger try even harder to push them on me!”

_Groupie._ Oh, that wretched word.

He continues. “And I almost never meet girls at bars. And when I do, never had they ever been anyone worthwhile…but…”

_Don’t say it._

“God, but with you, it’s just… I’ve never met a girl quite like…”

“Don’t say it,” she says aloud this time.

The world seems to still. His breath catches in his throat then. A wall suddenly cuts off the emotion from his face. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, Penny. You’re right. I should let you be on your way.”

Lady would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that she was tempted to stay.

Familiar words from an old friend a lifetime ago float through her thoughts.  _Don’t let too many boys fall in love with you._

And yet, other words, contradictory words, haunt her all the same. The words Lady herself had spoken just last night to Brian.  _Perhaps we were meant to find each other._

_Stop it._

So Lady straightens, brushes down the wrinkles of her skirt, and gives the man before her her saddest smile. “It was truly a pleasure to know you, Brian May.”

Brian takes her hand then, looking almost as if he has surprised himself in doing so. He brings her fingers up to his lips, pressing a kiss there. “I sincerely hope to one day see you again, Miss Penny Lane.”

And as Lady gives her last smile, grabs her suitcase, and sees herself out, she thinks:  _for your sake, Brian May, let’s hope not._

♛♛♛♛♛♛♛♛

It takes Lady the duration of walking time between Brian’s hotel and the lift to decide that she wasn’t going home. 

Sighing, she presses the star button to take her down to the lobby. She doesn’t know where she should go. But all she knows is that she would not go home.

The last time she’d been in this elevator, she was pinned up against its wall by Brian May. The memory made her want to giggle.

“Wait!!” 

A hand from outside the elevator suddenly slices between its closing doors. The doors reopen to let another passenger in. He’s tall, with feathery blond hair and a pair of sepia-shaded aviator sunglasses. There’s an unlit cigarette hanging between his lips. And just like Brian May, he sports a remarkably European style of clothing.

“Thanks, love,” he drawls. Lady moves aside and pulls her suitcase out of the way to make room for the man. She tries not to stare, racking her brain for a name. The blond hair, the voice… She’d heard that voice earlier, on the other side of the bathroom door. This must be Roger Taylor.

And Roger Taylor is not subtle about the up-down motion he gives her. His doe-eyes are playful, almost sultry. But in a way that seems like he doesn’t really even have to try to look that way.

“You checking out of your room?” he says. The elevator jolts as it begins its descent.

_He doesn’t recognize me._ How could he? He never saw the woman Brian was with. Lady nods, beside herself that she cannot for the life of her think of anything clever to say.

“I wish I had known earlier there was someone as gorgeous as you staying on the same floor as us,” he went on.

“‘Us?’” she lilts, playing dumb.

Roger leans toward her conspiratorially. “I’m a drummer,” he asserts, “for a band called Queen. We’re playin’ a gig tonight.”

“Never heard of ‘em,” she says, trying not to grin when his shoulders slump.

“You’re missing out, then.”

“Oh, really?”

He smirks at her, then seems to remember something. He opens his blazer and reaches into one of the inner pockets. “I was saving these for a couple of other girls, but, well, you look like you could use a bit of rock and roll.” He hands her a badge from his pocket, winking.

Lady examines it. It’s a backstage pass, laminated and hanging from a lanyard. Oh, how familiar the weight of it feels in her hands.

“You ever been to a rock and roll concert, love?” he asks.

“Maybe a few.”

“Show them this at the gates. Come find me.”

The elevator stops and dings, opening its doors again. Roger steps out first, looking at her one final time before stepping out into the lobby. Lady follows shortly, twiddling the pass in her hands. The lobby is a hub of activity. She watches as Roger joins a group of roadies, helping them orchestrate the moving of some crates of equipment back outside to a tour bus. As they exit the doors, a slew of reporters bombard Roger with photographs and outstretched microphones.

Nostalgia floods her perception. She feels out of place, yet right at home. Her professional clothes, the ones she’d packed for her college visit, feel foreign on her skin. And the backstage pass…it nearly calls out to her to be draped around her neck, like the old days when she’d wear it so proudly everywhere she went, like a badge of honor.

There is no way she could go home now.

Rolling her suitcase behind her, Lady approaches the concierge. “Could you direct me to your payphones, please?”

At the payphone, Lady unearths a few quarters from her purse and inserts them into the box. She dials the number she has memorized. There’s a buzzing sound as the call goes through.

“Hello, Mother? It’s Lady. Yes. Yes I’m fine. I’m sorry I missed my flight home… No, I’m actually calling to let you know I’m going to stay in Columbus for a while longer.”

♛♛♛♛♛♛♛♛

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, lovelies, don’t hesitate to tell me what you think! (Please please please I’m desperate for validation.) And stay tuned for chapter two! I love comments/kudos/bookmarks uwu


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